How are you? My name’s Anil Abeykoon, and I have recently opened up a new men’s health charity – MOT yourself – with Errol Mckellar. The charity aims to raise awareness about the importance of men getting themselves tested annually for prostate cancer, and generally take their health more seriously. A friend of mine – Dave Eakins – recently posted an article on my Facebook wall written which you had written about Errol. Dave thought it may be worth us getting in touch with you about how we have progressed, and what we are doing. To be a bit more blunt, we need help with branding, and were hoping that you may be able to help. Lots to explain and talk about! If possible, could Errol and I meet you for a coffee/chat sometime?

Got into the industry thinking to do high art for a certain few that would understand and wishing for awards. Once I grasped the concept that advertising were made for punters, I quit the industry and now doing calligraphy and children illustrations instead (weird I know).

But I still likes to check out the industry from time to time. Can’t really detach from it.

Damn. I spent ages writing pages of web copy about branding and tone of voice. I could have just put up one page saying ‘If you want to do art go and do art, if you’re in advertising you’ve got to relate to ordinary people.’ Genius.

Dave, don’t you think John Webster helped turn Advertising into an Art Form in the UK?
During the 60′s and 70′s most of the TV ads had better content and production
than the aired transmissions, which in hand pushed up the quality of TV production.

Now we have a situation where everything is online, so mass media has gone offline collectively.
Instead of one giant atom bomb we now have millions of incendiary devices hitting at an individual level.
The only mass media events now are the Super Bowl, (really an American thing).
The Olympics, Wimbledon and the World Cup.
That’s it!

The rest of the year is dismal, best go to Weston-Super-Mare.
Unless you want to have your ears plugged in and your head glued to a mobile phone or you’re
joined at the hip to Instagram to absorb what everybody else thinks and add “LIKE”.

The whole media thing just sucks of voluntary conformity in the desire to be Crapstone Villa’s average.

Kev,
Bob Levenson (who Bill Bernbach said was the best copywriter ever) put it this way:

‘Here’s the test: f you look at a commercial and fall in love with the brilliance of it, try taking the product out of it.
If you still love the commercial, it’s no good.
Don’t make your commercial interesting; make your product interesting.”

I know John Webster would agree with every word of that.
Try that test with any of John Webster’s commercials

On one side I can feel for the ad agency creative and understand Mr: “Fuck People” because I can see the creative who said it understood that if he let opinionated clients and other creatives get in the way of the idea (and we all know this one), it would be watered-down and possibly ruined. Then, having been forced to produce a pile of dross, for which he would be sniggered at from all corners, he would have to walk around the agency (as a friend of mine used to say) wearing a black hood because he’d created a “Ferrero Rocher moment” for “Only distinguished guests at the Ambassador’s Ball”, but of course if you totally disregard who you’re talking to (which I don’t think he meant to say, but inferred by using a swear word), it’s totally wrong.

On the other side, as one may say, if you take out the product, you’ve got “jack shit” (perhaps very pretty but completely meaningless). Not Advertising.

In the middle of all of this you’ve got the consumer, and most consumers say “Fuck Advertising, I’ve got a life” and it seems the longer we live, the stronger this attitude becomes. Now, if someone was really clever, they’d be able to advertise to the older generation. People with dispensable incomes, but they don’t because it’s too difficult, so they advertise to the 18-24 year olds because they are more naiive and easier to target.

Interestingly enough, I’ve seen a new trend over here recently. Girls are obsessed over here with taking shots of themselves pouting for “Selfies” which the Saatchi gallery has now announced as “Art” but now there’s a new craze. Young women in Russia are dating young men who are obsessed with photographing them. They call them “Selfie Boyfriends” They roll up in their cars, jump out into the snow, take a few shots and jump back into their cars again before the -35 weather freeze-frames everyone, then another car turns up and the same thing happens all over again. They seem to have particular hotspots where they congregate too. It’s so weird to watch because it looks like something right out of the “Swinging Sixties”.

The general consensus here seems to be the other way around. “Advertising is fucked” No posters in the streets or on the Metro. Very little Western TV Advertising. so let’s just go and advertise ourselves. It’s almost as if the wheel has turned full circle here whilst in Japan the Metro has gone into overdrive. Sometimes you can walk into a carriage and be blasted with so many banners and signs you just “Don’t know WTF to look at?!@*”

So, what have I learnt from all that? Idea and Impact are incredibly important, but if the media is screwed, so is the campaign, no matter how great it is.
In Paid-For Media there is a degree of regulation, but in Online Media it’s a mud bath. What has muddied the waters of recent is the fact that with since industry 4.0, and build by research have come of age, (see Hornby’s website where they make nothing without pre-order) clients (accountants) are advertising-to-order, which is a worrying trend because everything is becoming geared to value chains. The danger of this, is that, as you know Dave, if you advertise ‘The Flying Scotsman’ to someone who has already bought it, you’re preaching to the converted and not actually advertising, but treading water, and if businesses continue to do that they will busy themselves getting bogged down in the mud of accountancy efficiency and lose ground to the competitor who is advertising. Personally, I don’t see that as a bad thing. It’s just a shame that so many blinkered businesses will go bust if they think that selling to the same people is progress, It may look good on the balance sheet for a while, but eventually people become tired and move on and look for something new and fresh unless they are inspired, and I think that’s what Mr “Fuck People” was really trying to say. I just wonder how he could have said it better.